That's how many volunteer hours lawyers in the Dallas office of Hunton & Williams LLP logged last year, according to Dionne Rainey, who co-chairs the firm's pro bono committee.

For the third year in a row, 100 percent of Hunton & Williams' U.S. lawyers have worked on pro bono projects. All told, they clocked more than 50,000 hours nationwide. The firm's Texas offices -- in Dallas, Austin and Houston -- dedicated 4,538 hours to pro bono service.

"From the beginning of the firm, the founders have really instilled being active and giving back," Rainey told me. "It's always been something that's very important to the firm and talked about a lot. It's so important that, if it's not done, you kind of feel like you're letting someone else down."

The firm has also provided all of the legal services for the North Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church's Foundry United Methodist Fellowship project. H&W's role included organizational structure and formation, tax exemptions, real property transfer, construction contracts, construction financing, authorizations, deal closing and other legal services for forming the support organization that will carry on the church's human services function.

H&W's total pro bono work represented 4.28 percent of the firm’s gross billable hours and marked 17 continuous years of meeting or exceeding the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge of donating at least 3 percent of the firm’s annual billable hours to pro bono work, Rainey said.

With 104 Dallas lawyers, Hunton & Williams ranks as the 14th largest law firm in North Texas, according to the Dallas Business Journal Book of Lists.

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